


Tribute

by Reis_Asher



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e03 Secondo, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25526026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: After two years, Hannibal is beginning to lose confidence that Will is going to return. He contemplates a life wasted in a gilded cage waiting for a love that will never come.A single photograph from Chiyoh depicting Will's tribute to him serves to restore his faith that Will is the kindred spirit he's believed in all this time.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 120





	Tribute

Hannibal's mind wandered as he read. The same sentence flowed through his senses four times without comprehension before he realized it and snapped the volume shut. That brought him back to reality, and the stark truth of the fact that he now lived life in a gilded cage to which Dr. Bloom held the key.

Two years, now, and he was beginning to lose the certainty he'd held onto when he'd knelt down in the snow and surrendered. He might have been willing to play the long game, but as time went by, he was beginning to have doubts. Perhaps Will Graham wasn't the kindred spirit he'd imagined in those halcyon days before Will's betrayal. It was possible he'd been projecting—or Will's powers of denial were far greater than Hannibal had led himself to believe. It could be that a wife, child, and a house full of dogs was enough to distract Will from the ache of his primal urges. Enough to make him forget Hannibal, to never spare him a second thought. He might die here, relegated to obscurity, the beautiful boy who'd chained him so completely free to live out his entire life as a lie.

Hannibal wanted to throw the book at the glass, but such acts of aggression were likely to make Alana threaten him with loss of privileges again. Their deal remained so long as he was a courteous, model prisoner, and he had to play the game whether it was for five years or fifty.

What if he'd made a terrible wager on Will, misled by the power of his own all-consuming obsession with the man? What if Will never came back?

The door opened. Hannibal stood up and walked to the center of the room, as was the protocol. One of the orderlies placed his mail in the drawer and pushed it through. Probably more trite fanmail from people who got a thrill out of flirting with the Chesapeake Ripper. He hated that he hoped for something from Will. A piece of hate mail would be a blessing at this point, a poorly-penned missive claiming he no longer thought of Hannibal, betraying the fact that he still did. Smelling of children and wet dog like a slap in the face. Hannibal's letters had gone unanswered, all fifty-two of them. He imagined Will tossing them in the fire, afraid his wife might see the depths of Hannibal's regard if she read between the lines. It was fun to keep Will unsettled. To remind him that he was not forgotten. He wondered if Will traced lines along his scar, or whether he gave no thought to the mark Hannibal had left on him at all.

Hannibal opened the envelope, unsurprised that it had already been torn open and poorly resealed. A book fell out, an old hardcover volume in his native tongue, infused with a familiar scent that assaulted him. Home. Mischa. Chiyoh. He rifled through the pages, trying to find the significance of this gift. In the middle of the text sat a polaroid photograph, carefully pressed into the spine. Hannibal plucked it out, drinking in the details under the harsh light.

Strung up in the wine cellar of his estate was the man who'd killed his sister. Chiyoh's arrival in Florence had told Hannibal the man was dead, but she hadn't said a word about this display. His body was bound, his hands pressed together in prayer, as if begging for absolution. He wore the wings of a dragonfly on his back, broken glass glittering in the low light. 

It was beautiful. A gift. A tribute. And there was only one person who could have done it. Who could have thought to honor him and Mischa in this way, with this reverent piece of art.

Will Graham had created this display. Created a love letter to Hannibal without sending it, an answer to the bloody heart he'd left for Will in Florence.

A tear rolled down Hannibal's cheek, and the ache inside him twisted. Will knew him. Saw him. With this act, accepted him. Honored him. _Loved_ him.

If imitation was the greatest form of flattery, Hannibal felt like a god being worshipped in that moment. He had to admit nothing less than simple awe that Will could capture his essence so completely. Arousal pooled in his groin like Will had sent him a series of erotically posed nude pictures. He ran his fingers across the photograph, imagining Will at work on this canvas. He would have committed the act alone, like he imagined himself inside the mind of every killer he profiled. Hannibal saw Will smashing the dusty wine bottles in the cellar, polishing each piece of glass to make it shine. Wrapping the body in burlap sacks, transforming something ugly into a thing of beauty. The larva had hatched to produce this precious dragonfly, but it was less the man's becoming and more Will's that Hannibal saw in his mind palace. A glimpse of Will's true nature, and it matched his own so completely that Hannibal was moved beyond words. He'd been right about Will all along, and any doubts he'd started to harbor fled to the furthest reaches of his mind like cockroaches exposed to the light.

It was so intimate to have had Will reach into his soul like this that Hannibal almost felt him in the room, the distance between them falling away like they'd never been parted. They were the same. Will would return, because now he'd had a taste, it was only a matter of time before his lies fell apart. Hannibal's hold on his soul was complete, and he'd retreated into denial as a last-ditch effort to cast off the devil.

Hannibal snapped the book shut, the details of the picture committed to memory. No doubt Dr. Bloom would be in to ask him some questions about the photo. His captors thought this a trap to extract details about a copycat murder that they were learning about for the first time. As much as he wanted to boast about the truth, he would have to feign ignorance. It wouldn't do to have them haul Will in for questioning. He had to seek Hannibal out of his own accord.

He would. Sooner or later, he would come home, and they would create art together, painting a shared canvas of blood across the world in the language they spoke best to each other.


End file.
